Windows platform question

[fauria]

Hi monks!

Im not very used to work with MS systems, and i need to write a script that exports Excel files to plain text.

This may be a silly question, but im not really sure:

Can i write a program, complile it with perlcc to a win32 binary, and place it in the Sendto folder (whatever it is named) and use the Send to context menu of an Excel file to pass it, so i can handle it through @ARGV?
Do you know if it will work when selecting many files?

Thanks so much.

[ikegami]

No, because perlcc has never worked and doesn't exist for new versions of Perl.

But you can accomplish what you want with a trivial batch file.

@echo off
:: This is "parse_excel.bat"
perl "C:\Path To\parse_excel.pl" %1
pause

Place the batch file in the same directory as the .pl (or wherever you want) and create a shortcut (named however you want) to it in the "Send To" folder.

Update: Switched to more representative file names.
Update: You could even use pl2bat to convert your .pl into a batch file.

[ikegami]

I missed your desire for it to work with multiple files. Use %* instead of %1 in the batch file.

@echo off
:: This is "parse_excel.bat"
perl "C:\Path To\parse_excel.pl" %*
pause

The names of the selected files will be present in @ARGV

for my $xl_file_name (@ARGV) {
   ...
}

[jettero]

perlcc has never worked

It worked a little in 1996... I used it for some small things... But even back then, people warned you away from it.

[marto]

Don't use perlcc, its dead. See Re: perl compiling not working and the posts linked to there. Use pp which is now part of PAR::Packer to bundle up your script and the required modules etc.

Martin

[Bloodnok]

Assuming you've got a Windoze compatible perl e.g. Strawberry Perl, why not use OLE via Win32::OLE ? See Using Win32::OLE and Excel - Tips and Tricks for further details ...

HTH ,

[SilasTheMonk]

I believe there is a Spreadsheet::ParseExcel module. Why not use that?

[okram]

I've answered a similar question on node 652223

Basically, with ActiveState Perl, and using PAR::Packer. You do get an EXE.

"Send To" passes the file name as arguments: you should get them on @ARGV.
Check cpan xls2csv for a simple xls to csv "translator".
What you might want to do in your program is to save the CSV or TSV or whatever file you need in the same folder as the file that has been passed via @ARGV.

Please do let us know how that went ;)

[strat]

Perhaps Re: excelPerl V0.13 released might help you:

excelPerl.pl 
    -begin "use Text::CSV_XS; $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new( { binary => 1}
+ )" 
    -ane "$csv->combine(@F); print $csv->string, $/"
    -f file.xls

(Just put it all in one line)

[Tux]

Spreadsheet::Read comes with xls2csv and xlscat (actually the first uses the second), which does exactly what you ask for: convert M$Excel to plain text or CSV, using SPreadsheet::ParseExcel and Text::CSV_XS.